Record Lots Sold At Auction

Highlights of the report include a new historical high for the number of lots sold globally at auction which hit 550,000 during 2019 with an impressive average lot price of $24,300. This represents the highest number of lots sold in any year since 1945. These lots sold for a total of $13.3 billion which is a fourfold increase on the $3.2 billion total global art auction turnover in 2000. Interestingly, the number of lots has doubled over that same time period from 272,000 to 550,000, signalling a significant increase in average price per artwork.

“The drivers of this growth are ease of access to art market information, electronic sales (99% of the market’s participants are connected to the Internet), the financialization of the market, a growing population of ever-younger art consumers (from 500,000 after WWII to 120 million in 2019) and the extension of the market to the entire Asia-Pacific area, plus India, South Africa, the Middle East and South America,” the report commented.